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The project is designed to strengthen local capacities which underlie coping and adaptation at both the individual and community levels. Given that trauma counseling and individualized psychological approaches are not culturally appropriate, affordable or sustainable, the project aims to mobilize community resources through a collaborative, participatory approach which will enable beneficiaries to help themselves, their families, and their neighbors to re-establish community routines and living patterns. This in turn will further increase involvement in social and cultural activities, strengthen networks of support and assistance, and promote psychosocial coping and resiliency.
The project will also be based on a population health approach, which recognizes that effective coping to psychosocial stressors requires mitigation of other life demands, such as securing livelihoods and meeting basic needs. This was in fact observed during the February CARE psychosocial assessment, during which respondents consistently identified the loss of livelihoods and deteriorating health as their principle stressors. Although the Community Psychosocial Support Project will not in itself include an income-generating or health component, it will be implemented in coordination with CARE’s livelihood and environmental health programs in order to ensure an integrated and comprehensive approach to programming, thereby addressing the apparent need to balance community and psychosocial programming.
This approach will also provide a mechanism to ensure that implemented activities are sustainable. For example, while initial community capacity projects may be funded by CARE, discussions will be undertaken with communities to ensure that maintenance and replenishment will be assumed by the beneficiaries over the longer term. From a psychosocial perspective, this integration of project activities into the broader CARE program will not only provide beneficiaries opportunities to attain greater self-sufficiency, and thus reduce levels of stress and distress associated with loss of livelihoods and displacement, but will also contribute to a greater sense of normalcy, control and predictability in their lives.
The proposed project will employ a collaborative, participatory approach with activities being planned, managed and implemented to a large extent by the beneficiaries. This will not only actively engage members of a community in identifying their own needs, but will encourage self-reliance through the mobilization of community resources and networks. Moreover, this process of planning, implementing, and completing community projects can provide a forum for communities to gain self-confidence in planning for their future and, in this regard, are integral to any community-based psychosocial intervention.
As part of CARE’s overall strategy in Aceh, the Community Psychosocial Support Project will help establish and work with community development councils to identify, plan and implement activities. These councils–which will include representation from women, youth, elderly (particularly widows), and minorities proportional to the composition of the communities–will form the basis for ongoing communal dialogue, negotiation and agreement surrounding the development and implementation of CARE project activities. Additionally, community facilitators will be locally recruited to assist in organizing, coordinating, and implementing activities. These community facilitators will have a strong understanding of community needs and priorities and the capacity to mobilize community resources. All facilitators will receive training in community development and psychosocial activities and theory.
 
Neighbour in Need - NiN, CARE Österreich
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